Recent advances in the development of ligands specifically targeting telomeric multimeric G-quadruplexes

Long human telomeric DNA sequence could form higher-order G-quadruplex structures, namely telomeric multimeric G-quadruplexes. The formation of telomeric multimeric G-quadruplexes has been demonstrated. Several efforts have been devoted to the development of ligands targeting telomeric multimeric G-quadruplexes in recent years. The reported ligands specifically targeting telomeric multimeric G-quadruplexes exhibited either high anticancer activity with effective stabilization ability or distinct fluorescence responses to telomeric multimeric G-quadruplexes. In this review, the ligands including three types of small molecules are discussed which focus on their structural features and binding modes. Furthermore, we put forward the promising prospects and current challenges. This presented review might provide new strategies to exploit more sophisticated ligands targeting telomeric multimeric G-quadruplexes.